I imagine Sharon B will be moving on to a new embroidery stitch in the Stitch Explorer challenge, but just had to have another go at Chicken Scratch. I really enjoy this concept and see so many possibilities with it! This one involves small squares of multi color gingham lightly fused to a piece of my hand-dyed felt in a checkerboard pattern as a base for stitching, again with my own yarn.
THOSE COMMENTS...
Thank you Kristin Nicholas for stopping by my blog! Hope all is continuing to go well with lambing; I loved that last photo you posted!
Sharon, thank you for admiring my first piece I did for Stitch Explorer. Hope you stop back and see today's!
Now I'm off to feed some sheep.
Kristin Nicholas has posted a beautiful short video of one of her sheep giving birth and caring for its new lamb. This would be a great video to watch with children.THOSE COMMENTS...Barbara G, thank you for the feedback. I missed seeing your new work at our last meeting!
A couple days ago I checked in on my chickens just after lunchtime. This is what I saw: an opossum had found his way into the house, taken the top off the kitty litter pan I use as an egg box, had himself a tasty egg dinner, and snuggled in among broken eggshells for a nice nap. When I first saw him he was sound asleep in a ball. I was unable to capture that because I had to run back into the house for my camera.
Ever so slowly, he shook off his somnolence. He knew he was in an awkward situation and stayed curled up with his pointed snout open, showing some rather sharp-looking teeth. Most of the chickens were outside in their fenced-in area, but there were one or two walking around inside, unconcerned. There were a few eggs laid in the bedding in another corner of the coop so I'm assuming this fellow had been in possession of the egg box for awhile.
I don't want him to be a regular visitor so using a t-post I tipped him out of the box. He scurried out through the small chicken door, cowered in one corner of the outdoor pen, and eventually found a way out to freedom. He may have been helping himself to eggs all along but got sloppy in his burglary by snoozing on the job. I'll have to keep an eye on the situation and make some changes in the fencing if I see him again.
Time to show one of my projects from last summer. This is a ruglet, a small prototype for a rug. I tend to embark on rather labor-intensive projects so I like to do small samples and then make a decision about whether I want to invest the time on a larger version, or whether my idea would even work.
This ruglet was woven on my big Swedish loom on a cotton warp using several hues of hand-dyed wool roving. I didn't want the warp to show so laying in enough roving weft to cover the warp yarn was quite fiddly. If I were weaving a rug I'd probably use a nice dyed wool warp and not worry about whether the weft covered it completely. I'm also not sure about how this would function as a rug. I wouldn't want to put it in a high traffic area; it might be quite nice though as a scatter rug next to a bed.
I am, to a fault, a divergent thinker and a curious person. I'm always up for learning about, or at least admiring, a new artistic medium. The problem is that I often allow myself to be lured into trying my hand at these new adventures. I've finally decided that it's a good thing, something that I shouldn't try to reign in for now, but it definitely results in being spread a little thin.
Here's an example. I'm currently enrolled in a fantastic online course, Paper Quilting Explorations, with Terri Stegmiller. I'm not a quilter and clearly wool is my thing. The class is time-intensive (as evidenced by my lack of blogs over the past few days), but so worthwhile. I'm putting materials I'd purchased and stored away and learning about the characteristics of various surface design products.
This piece involved gluing white tissue paper to muslin after crumpling it up then smoothing it back out, spraying three hues of Adirondack Color Wash (I used hues close to the primaries I use for dyeing) and then spreading the dyes around on the surface. After drying I added a little gold Lumiere paint to bring in a little light, cut the sheet into six squares and darkened the edges with a black stamp pad that was almost dried out (oh well).
For the background I chose some sheet music that my mother-in-law had used as a young girl and glued it to muslin. The background was fused to Pellon. The squares were fussed to the background in a pleasing arrangement. Finally, a little machine stitching around the squares and the edges of the background were machine zig-zagged. I like it enough to hang it and will probably be matting it on a canvas, although I'm open for suggestions. I've added a close-up below.
THOSE COMMENTS...
JaneO, thank you the positive feedback on my chicken scratch embroidery. I took a look at the work you’re doing as a City and Guilds student, and it looks intense! I’ve been subscribing to your blog for awhile. City and Guilds, for anyone that’s not familiar with this, is an educational program leading to a diploma in stitched textiles.. At one time the program was supported by the British government! JaneO, if anything I said here was inaccurate or if you’d like to say more, please come back and leave another comment.
Helen, thank you for your compliment on the chicken scratch embroidery. Helen, also located in England, maintains a blog. It’s worth a click to check it out; scroll down a little to 11 August 2008 for a hilarious post on stash busting!
Thank you, Elizabeth, for your comments. I love the texture too- that’s one of the reasons I love working with felt. I realized that I had made a mistake in my description of the work. The lighter brown squares are couched, not appliquéd. Elizabeth has a great blog, Quieter Moments, in which she’s documenting her embroidery work.
I'm participating in the Stitch Explorer challenge over on Sharon Bogan's blog, Pin Tangle. Each month Sharon will be posting information about an unusual stitch or style of embroidery. She provides guidance and links to other sources of information about the stitch. Sharon challenges participants to try the technique, modifying it with their own ideas.
This month's challenge is "Chicken Scratch," described as a combination of simple cross stitches and a lacing technique. As always I'm partial to wool yarn on felt (from my sheep of course). Chicken Scratch is often worked on gingham; I chose work my own version of gingham by couching contrasting squares onto the background with the embroidery stitches themselves. I'm pleased with my sample (6 x 6); the photo doesn't really capture the texture. Lots of fun, so many possible variations!
Temperatures are predicted to be below zero in the morning, without taking wind chill into consideration. We're ready!
THOSE COMMENTS...
Thanks for stopping by, Elis. Her great blog, Into the Blystic, documents every few days another of her abstract paintings. I really enjoy seeing them, and lately she has started commenting on her technique. I think that enjoying another art medium helps me to be more creative in my own.
My husband gave me these flowers on my birthday. That was 23 December. I want what they're having.THOSE COMMENTS...
Lynn, thanks much for your kind comments! The twined rug was fun to make, and not at all mentally taxing. I like that.
NEW OFFERING:
Evol-HUE-tion sock yarn dyed in my latest colorway. Two "cakes" available at $25.00 per. For more information about this yarn and how it knits up, please check out this web page.
Kristin Nicholas, author of Kristin Knits, reports that they're in the midst of lambing time at her farm. She lives in Northern Franklin County, not far from here, and her blog, Getting Stitched on the Farm, is one of my favorites. Over the last few days there have been lots of new lamb photos stop by and see!
Here's a photo of a rug that I twined this fall in a class taken with Alice Kane of Northampton. Alice does an exquisite type of embroidery called black work, and in addition she creates excellent twined rugs.
A beginning project, this rug measures 18 inches by 23 inches. It was twined using an inexpensive loom constructed of canvas stretchers. I tore strips from an old blue blanket, an olive Army type blanket, and added some purchased wool in a bright plaid. It is an extremely solid little rug that lays nice and flat on the floor and will wear like iron. This class was offered at the Wool and Dye Works here in town.
